Main purpose of this TEK is to have emulsion-free procedure which leads from cactus matter to pure white mescaline when followed properly.

This TEK is based on this topic describing emulsion-free procedure for initial extraction and adds salting/titration and further purification. So now it can be called (full blown) TEK.

Bellow in this post you can find Compatibility Table. This is open to anyone who would like to try this TEK either with confirmed cactus material and chemicals to confirm its validity or with unknown cactus material or chemicals to experience the research frenzy. Just let me know and I can post the results of anyone's endeavours.
I am here ready to support anyone who would like to go this path. Just please study first and understand the principles before you start with this TEK. Everything is available here on Nexus.

Recommendations for initial extraction :

Powderized cactus :

1. Prepare basified water for initial cell breakdown -
**water - use 1:7 ratio (weight - cactus:water).
**KOH - use 1:1,5 ratio (weight - cactus:KOH)
2. Put the basified water together with the cactus into the blender and mix properly (I am using 1kW blender) and let sit for 1-5 days (22C) until watery. This is a very important point. We don't want any snot. If not watery after 5 days, add some water, mix and wait again.
Heating helps to speed up cell breakdown, but I am not using it.
For safety reasons you might just blend the cactus (without KOH solution) in the blender and do the (proper) mixing with KOH solution within safely enclosed vessel. In fact this is the preferred way atm. Works just fine.
3. When watery, add another water with 1:1,5 ratio (weight - cactus:water)
4. Add NaCl with 1:2,61 ratio (weight - cactus:NaCl). Mix properly before adding np
5. Then add toluene. I am using 2ml for 1g of cactus, but it might be less if you can separate all np easily

Fresh cactus :

1. Cut the cactus (whole - with core, skin, spines), make stars, put into blender and blend properly. Result should be a fine cactus juice.
2. Prepare basified water for initial cell breakdown -
**Water - use 1:0,000455 ratio (weight - cactus:water)
**KOH - use 1:0,0975 ratio (weight - cactus:KOH)
3. Put the basified water together with the cactus into the blender and mix properly (I am using 1kW blender) and let sit for 1-5 days (22C) until watery. This is a very important point. We don't want any snot. If not watery after 5 days, add some water, mix and wait again.
Heating helps to speed up cell breakdown, but I am not using it.
For safety reasons you might just blend the cactus (without KOH solution) in the blender and do the (proper) mixing with KOH solution within safely enclosed vessel. In fact this is the preferred way atm. Works just fine.
4. Add NaCl with 1:0,47 ratio (weight - cactus:NaCl). Mix properly before adding np
5. Then add toluene. I am using 2ml for 1g of cactus, but it might be less if you can separate all np easily


Then mix as you wish. I am using 1 min violent shaking with subsequent total layers separation. 3 rounds for first pull, 6 for second pull and 6 for third pull (heated). First pull provides about 68%, second pull 22% and third one 10% of goods. First separations take longer, last are much faster. Sometimes first full separation takes few hours.

It is a good idea to place a sticker to the vessel at the level of the top of the base with cactus, so it is obvious where should be the separation line. Every extraction loses some non-polar (the separation line is higher than the sticker). But it should not be above 25% of non-polar within first two pulls and about 15% for the third pull. To be clear, we are not talking about any kind of emulsion here.
What helps to release more non-polar from basic soup?
- more water. Every extraction uses different material, especially with raw cactus. So the entry water is not always the same
- heat. This is a reason why last pull is heated (70-80C).
- vibrations. I suggest washing machine spinning for half an hour while hot
- time

Detailed process (powderized cactus)

For 100g of dried powderized cactus :

Initial extraction stage

1. Put 150g KOH into 0,7L of distilled water. Dissolve. Cool down to room temperature
2. Pour solution into the blender
3. Add 100g of cactus
4. Mix thoroughly (at least 3 minutes)
5. Let sit 24-72h - must be watery, no snot!
6. Add 150ml of distilled water
7. Add 261g NaCl for solution saturation (ionic strength), mix thoroughly
8. Add 300ml of toluene
9. Mix thoroughly, shake as much as possible. Let fully separate layers. Repeat 3x for first pull, 6x for second pull, 10x for last pull (can be heated)
10. Let sit 12-24h, so the non-polar solvent gets clear. Abolute clearness is important
11. Siphon off as much non-polar solvent as possible. 50ml pipette with rubber bulb works very well. Be careful to not siphon anything else
12. Repeat steps 8-12 3 times (3 pulls)

Additional info:

Step 1.
Please, realize KOH is a strong base. It can burn you, which is unpleasant, but it can blind you once in your eyes!. If something goes wrong and the vessel breaks, you don't want to be in the middle of your living room, but rather above kitchen sink.
So follow these precautions :

- Always have goggles when working with base! I mean ... ALWAYS!
- Always have gloves when working with base! Important, but not as the previous one
- Always keep the vessel with loose top while not shaking
- Always double-check the top is tight before you start shaking
- Never heat up or cool down the vessel fast, especially if you don't have special glassware
- Shake only where it's not a big deal when the vessel slips out of your hands
- And finally the most important - USE YOUR BRAIN!

Step 2.
I am using 1kW glass blender (Braun JB 3060 WH). It can crush ice cubes, so it has no problem to powderize cactus chips and it turned few kg of shredded MHRB into fine powder too without a hiccup. I just put there cold basified water, powderized chips, place hdpe bag over the top (there are some holes in the cover!), put the cover, hold by hand (necessary!!!) and mix for few minutes with different speeds. Works like a charm!

Back-salting/Titration stage

Here we go

Purification stage

Here it is

Compatibility (Cactus / Non-polar / Acid / Result)

This chart is not available yet. Anyway this TEK has been tested by me on :
- powderized green outer tissue of peruvian torch
- complete fresh cactus for peruvian torch, pachanoi and bridgesii. More in this thread...

update on swim extraction:

he expirience this tek with 75 grams in 1 liter jar of low grade mostly shade grown between buildings san pedro that was dried "as is" with core and waxy layer include when that stem core was cutabble, if that word exist
the extraction stage(cacti and xylen jar) goes exellent without emulsion,
the pulling titration stage stage(xylen and h2o+hcl titration) strart to form en emulsion that finnaly dissolved with hot water bath and somethimes base again and put all back to cacti car and start again.
swim was not pleased from the result, 300mg that was probebly 150mg or so (mixed the purification stage with other extraction),
pete was VERY kind to help and guild swim with the extraction.

swim think of the following thing that might cousing low yield:
1. swim cacti is probebly weak and not have much alkaloid in it.
2. swim didnt mix good enough the cacti with the water (before nacl - step 2) and probebly needed to blend it a bit more (only 2 min with hand blender), alto the jar sit for a week but it was break for 3 layers. cacti bottom and top but in the middle it was kinnda watery little dark color.
it was watery at the top but might not be enough.

and for the emulsion, swim less belive that xylen insteed of toluene make such diffrente in the emulsion but this might be the reason, or it because the core and waxy layer.

Well, if we consider 150mg from 75g, it is 0.2% for dried whole cactus. If the cactus is unknown random specimen, then it is not as bad result, I would say.



There are always some "layers" within the aqueous layer. Especially for later pulls.
Proper initial mixing is indeed important. Anyway, I believe it can be corrected (to some point) by increased frequency of shaking and/or longer soaking of the cactus in base and/or by heating the solution. But I always mix properly at the beginning, so it is just a theory.



Well, someone will have to go this way and prove whether it is caused by xylene or anything else. Finally I will do it, I just have to wait for my cactuses to grow up a bit. Maybe someone else will dare to do it sooner.

Guys, I don't have very good news for you. I have acquired about 400g of fresh potent cactus and decided to give it a try and proceed with extraction, just to check this TEK on full fresh cactus.

I have chopped the cactus in the blender and followed the tek, just with less water, as there already is some water in the cactus. The snot was left for 3 days in KOH with occasional mixing/shaking. It reduced the volume by 20% and got not completely watery, but definitely liquid.

After NaCl and toluene addition the problem arised. When violently mixed and left to separate for 4 hours, only 1/3 of toluene released from the solution. Which is very bad result.

I had to leave my home, so I don't know if it is separating or lost in the aqueous layer. I will keep you informed how it goes once I return back home.

But the current result is : this TEK is likely not suitable for whole fresh cactus and I will have to tweak it so it can be used for not just green tissue.

After 4 days it is even worse. There is tiny non-polar at the top, about 20%, the rest is withing ugly emulsion.

The result is : this TEK is not suitable for whole cactus.

I will try to find some way once I have material for tests.

My suspect would be the waxy skin.

Fortunately it is not usually that hard to remove the skin (as long as the cactus has not too many scars): Dethorn, cut along spines, deskin, cut out the green flesh, discard core and proceed.

I found some easy method of skin removal but could not find it anymore. It involved hot water and the skin was really easy to remove from flesh. Just like peeling tomatoes.

Just heat it. At 70-80c the emulsion will disappear

Yes, I think it's the skin as well. I am planning to divide the cactus into 3 parts - green tissue, core & white tissue and skin and proceed with separate extractions to identify the problematic part.
I just don't have live material atm.

No antichode, this emulsion is different. I put it into boiling bath for one hour and the emulsion stayed intact. Some non-polar was released, but not much. I suspect it is something similar that happened to me before with dmt extraction with NaCl.

This extraction was just a small test, so I was not forced to salvage it. What I tried was taking some of this emulsion and adding strong HCl and a bit of water. The emulsion decomposed.

Hi!

May I ask why you went for the procedure using xylene? Xylene is really toxic for the environment (That includes you)

I tried a Xylene tek and deemed it inferior to the ones where you extract directly.

If you asked me, I never used xylene. I always use toluene for initial extraction.

Hi pete666,

True but never the less not much better. If we have teks that use toluene we should have big warning signs that the exposure of these chemicals can harm unborn live and should never ever be used if pregnant women are around. Xylene is not known to cause birth defects but toluene does.

Anyways, I am curious why you went for this tek. What was your reason not to go with 69ron's stuff?

Hi DrSeltsam,

ron's TEK is a bit inconvenient imho. I really don't want to filter anything, it would cause a big mess, even when frenchpress would be used. I believe it works, but compared to STB I do, I don't see any advantage.
With STB I put everything into the vessel at the beginning and it stays there till the end. Then it goes directly to the toilet. If I don't make any mistake and don't break the vessel, everything dirty is happening within the vessel. The only thing that gets out of the vessel is pure non-polar. With pipette, again super easy/clean.

Moreover, d-limonene is quite difficult to find where I live. If you find it, it is really costly. And forget knowing it's real content, because it is not certified from chem. supplier. Nobody knows what is in there.
I prefer rather working with maybe more dangerous chemicals, but with the best certified purity. I know my enemy, so I can prepare. The toluene can be either ingested or inhaled. Ingestion is impossible, due to the excessive purification (both for mescaline and dmt). Inhalation is minimized even without the respirator, because the exposure is just for the short time of back-salting. I am never evaporating the solvent, as none of my TEKs needs it. Cheap powerfull ventilator is ensuring the solvent stays in the room I do the work just for minimal time.
And respirator is a good idea too, I am thinking about it. But due to the very short exposure and low concentration of vapors, I feel it is just an overkill. I don't think I am pregnant, but I might try to do some tests, if they are available for males

I have got some time, so decided to move forward with tests of this TEK and various fresh cactuses.
Because this TEK was initially designed for powderized material and it was not adapted for fresh, I just followed it, taking 10g of fresh like 1g of dry. Then I realized it was way off and the TEK has to be updated. But the results of this test are interesting even with excessive amount of water and low amount of NaCl, so I decided to put them here.
Pachanoi, bridgesii and peruvianus were acquired from commercial source. First two were tested, peruvianus is waiting and will be tested shortly.
Cactus was despined, deskinned and white and green flesh were separated. Then 4 tests were done for each one - just white flesh, just green flesh, white+green flesh and everything, including core, spines and skin.
100g of material was highly blended, 70ml of water with 15g KOH was added and it was properly mixed in the blender. Then it was allowed to stay 12 hours with occasional shaking.
Then 25g of NaCl was added and mixed thoroughly.
Then 50ml of toluene was added and the mixture was shaken violently (the most possible) for 30 seconds. After separation of non-polar solvent it was shaken again.

Here are the results for bridgesii:
1. picture - bridgesii
2. picture - bridgesii cut
3. picture - bridgesii white flesh
4. picture - bridgesii green flesh
5. picture - bridgesii white+green flesh
6. picture - bridgesii all

Here are the results for pachanoi:
1. picture - pachanoi
2. picture - pachanoi cut
3. picture - pachanoi white flesh
4. picture - pachanoi green flesh
5. picture - pachanoi white+green flesh
6. picture - pachanoi all

So as you can see, the tests were quite successfull.
HCl titration will be processed for extract from whole cactus to test whether any kind of emulsion is of concern.

I will do some more tests with remaining material for updated TEK - altered amounts of water and NaCl.

Wow Thanks for that piece of rigorous scientific work.

I am also modifying the cactus preparation as well as alcohol+A/B tek in many ways.

I will then compare the results with wachuma powder (most likely from whole cactus) imported from Peru.

So here are results for bridgesii HCl titration. 50ml of new toluene was used for pull, 30ml of that was used for titration. I usually get 68% of alkaloids for first pull, but this would be for 13ml of toluene in our case. Therefore I assume we get 100%, so we stay safe and not overshoot the estimate. 1,85% HCl was used, volume of one drop is 0,064516129ml and it salts 0,008298926g of mescaline.
Drops are counted until nitrazine turns yellow.
Dry is calculated as 6,5% of fresh.
The error is about 1/2 of drop, so 0,033195704mg of mescaline, which is 0,005% fresh and 0,105% dry.

Whole cactus : 8 drops, 0,066391408mg, 0,11% fresh, 1,70% dry
White inner flesh + core : 2 drops, 0,016597852mg, 0,03% fresh, 0,43% dry
Green outer flesh : 11 drops, 0,091288186mg, 0,15% fresh, 2,34% dry

As we know there are other alkaloids in bridgesii, so just part of it is in fact mescaline.
Nitrazine was used for the first time and I have to say, this is really helpful tool!

First picture is whole, second is white flesh, third is green flesh. Whole and white were without heating, white had some bubbles, but nothing that wouldn't disappear within minutes. Green had to be heated, but when warm, emulsion disappeared.

Excellent.

I have finished alcohol+A/B extraction of just green outer flesh and found the other parts of the cactus (namely the skin) have little effect on emulsion. The amount of oily stuff was virtally the same.

One benefit of removing skins is that less material is needed - it is more potent corresponding to calculations. More powder then fits Soxhlet and less alcohol (or water/KOH in your case) is needed.

I will try yet another run with wachuma powder from Peru (expecting to arrive any day) which is from whole cactus.